Goodbye Shaun the sheep

It is with much grief that I am writing this post. On New Years Day we lost two very important beings in our lives; our close friend Geoffy, and Shaun.

Geoff died after a short battle with lung cancer; he never did things by halves that man. Having discovered he had lung cancer he shortly thereafter discovered a brain tumour and bone cancer, so his illness was short. Geoff was a surrogate father of sorts to my daughters when they were growing up, he was there for all the important events in their lives; birthdays, Yule, graduations, driving lessons, first boils, first boyfriends, first break up. He provided a sounding board for ideas and a release valve for venting, all mixed up with a wicked sense of humour and bourbon. We will miss him deeply.

The story of losing Shaun is a cautionary tale...
After his adventure in the wild he seemed his usual self, helping me about my daily business; following to the chook pen, around the garden, sitting by me as I spun, begging for rice crackers, but he was a ticking time bomb.
Several months ago we changed wormer from white to clear (there are three types of wormer for sheep; white, clear and organophosphate), we have been worming as usual but didn't realise we had clear drench resistant worms in our herd. Three of my girls were underweight, but we put that down to them feeding babies. When Nut died, I attributed it to mushrooms, but I now believe that was worms as well.

Shaun and Spot begging for rice crackers while I try to spin.

Shaun didn't eat breakfast on New Years Day, by that afternoon he was looking very sad and we decided to take him to the vet (always on a holiday). We got to the vet at about 8 O'clock, Shaun looked very sick by then and couldn't stand up. The vet wasn't hopeful but agreed (in the face of my tears) to try anything possible for him. He rang the next day to say he had died through the night. I am currently drenching the remaining 5 sheep once a day for three days with a new brand of white drench and hoping this will break the cycle, I can not cope with any more loss at the moment.

On the way to the vet, looking very sick.

If only I had thought of worms.

My heart is breaking; I have lost three close friends in the last two weeks and feel incredibly guilty about not picking up the worm problem sooner. On top of all that (yes...there's more), Big (one of our old roosters) got beaten up by one of his sons, one of Book Book's babies (our little frizzle hen) is not well, Spot (our 16 year old dog) hurt his shoulder and needs to be carried to the toilet and back every hour or so, and just because I like a degree of difficulty...a White faced heron baby has come into care (he eats live food, so I am catching fish and tadpoles in the dam for him three times a day).

Big getting his injuries documented for litigation (possibly)

Book Book's baby not feeling great

Spot, on doggie pain relief

Our new baby...a White faced heron

Spot ans Shaun.

No, I'm not complaining...I love my life and giving my heart to every animal that comes to the door ends in tears more often than not, but if I don't fall in love with them I miss the magical part of caring for them (without the magic it's just poop and feeding). I will fall in love with the next being who comes to the door looking for help too...it's who I am.